ALERT: PG&E Spraying Herbicides Throughout California

Despite the successful campaign by residents of rural Humboldt County to
convince PG&E to stop spraying herbicides around power poles, the giant
utility still is drenching about a million of the poles with a variety of
chemicals elsewhere in its service area.

According to information obtained by Californians for Alternatives to
Toxics (CATs) from PG&E officials, the electricity company sprays
herbicides to clear weeds and brush away for up to 40% of its 2.5 million
power poles. Its contractors also apply herbicides to clear high-voltage
transmission corridors and to treat stumps on residential properties within
87,000 miles of electrical lines.

Although property owners must give signed authorization in advance for
herbicide application, residents throughout northern California have
reported to CATs on numerous occasions that PG&E or its contractors have
sprayed--unannounced--near homes, schools and water resources.

Most recently, a Freshwater resident told CATS of unauthorized
tree-cutting and stump-spraying by a PG&E contractor next to a spring on
her property that supplies drinking water to her home. The herbicide was
Garlon 4, whose active ingredient, triclopyr, has toxic health and
environmental effects and can move through soil to contaminate ground and
surface water.

CATs has complained that PG&E does not have a transparent means of
informing the public about where it plans to spray or what it will use. It
also apparently has no database of sensitive areas where it should avoid
applying herbicides even when authorized by a landowner.

PG&E is required by state and federal regulators to keep vegetation away
from poles and transmission lines to reduce the threat of fire from
sparks. Herbicides are used to keep costs down, although other non-toxic
means of vegetation control can achieve the purpose.